On Assignment: Licking County, Ohio-Day Five

"Flyin' Brian" by Wes Aldridge

Meet Brian Fowler, or as many people know him, "Mr. Dance Ohio." He won this honor and the Licking County Chamber wanted to feature him in the portfolio section of their magazine. I thought this was an interesting concept from the get go.

My editor gave me his contact information only yesterday. That didn't give me much time to track him down and set an appointment for a portrait before I flew out on Sunday. Time was against me and I just hoped a power stronger than me would give me a hand on this one. And, yeah, that happened. I got in touch with him and sat an appointment for a couple of hours later that day.

I drove through the bitter cold in what seemed like a blizzard to the studio where this guy danced. I sat up a light and started shooting reflections of him Jete, Plie and Pirouette... and it blew my mind. I didn't know guys could make their bodies do the things this aerobatic wonder was doing. I had to get myself reflected in one of the shots. Do you notice his legs are parallel to the ground? Yeah, they are.

For the shot, it was at ISO 100 with a shutter speed of 1/200th of a second at aperture f/4.5 with a White Lightning strobe light bounced through out of an umbrella. I was using my radio slave to trigger the strobe to allow freedom of movement and I positioned the light at 45-degrees to the subject.

The kid asked me, "Can your camera shoot multiple shots right in a row?" I said, "Yeah, but I just shoot one at a time." He said, well, the newspaper guy that shot me had a real problem getting the 'right' shot." I just told him, "I'm not just some newspaper guy..." After I was finished shooting he and his dance instructors were pretty pleased with the action images I captured. Rock.